Stock price response to new‐CEO earnings news

New‐CEO earnings news exhibits asymmetric effects on stock prices. Stock prices rise more on good earnings news announced by firms with new CEOs compared with those with established CEOs. By contrast, stock prices tend to fall by a smaller amount on bad earnings news for new CEOs. Both the new‐CEO quality effect and the new‐CEO honeymoon effect are more pronounced for CEOs appointed during challenging situations. The new‐CEO quality effect is stronger for firms followed by fewer analysts, while the honeymoon effect is stronger for firms followed by more analysts – illustrating the importance of a transparent information environment.     

The Young and the Restless: A Study of Age and Acquisition Propensity of CEOs of UK Firms

Using a large sample of CEOs of UK firms, we show that CEO age is a key determinant of acquisition activity. We find that younger CEOs are more likely to acquire another firm and spend more on large capital expenditures. We argue that while younger CEOs of both UK and US firms undertake more acquisitions than their older peers, their motivations for acquisitions might differ. We find that the stock market perceives acquisitions by younger CEOs to be of a higher quality. Following previous studies, we use CEO tenure as a proxy for reputation, and find that large acquisitions enhance CEO reputation, especially for younger CEOs. In contrast to the previous findings for CEOs of US firms, we determine that the compensation of CEOs in the UK does not increase after acquisitions. This absence of a compensation incentive for CEOs of UK firms is consistent with the idea that the UK compensation structure is more restrictive and has a smaller equity‐based component. Our evidence is also inconsistent with an overconfidence effect. Overall, our results provide consistent evidence of executive signaling by younger CEOs of UK firms eager to distinguish themselves.     

CEO contractual protection and debt contracting

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) contractual protection, in the forms of CEO employment agreements and CEO severance pay agreements, is prevalent among S&P 1500 firms. While prior research has examined the impact of these agreements on corporate decisions from shareholders’ perspective, there is little research on the impact from debt holders’ perspective. We find that, compared with other loans, loans issued by firms with CEO contractual protection on average contain more performance covenants and performance-pricing provisions. This effect increases with CEOs’ risk-taking incentives and opportunities, but it decreases with CEOs’ preference for and opportunity of enjoying a quiet life. Furthermore, for loans issued by firms with CEO contractual protection, debt holders include stricter covenants, charge a higher interest rate and use a more diffuse syndicate structure. Collectively, these results shed light on the impact of CEO contractual protection on debt contracting.     

Stock price crash risk and CEO power: Firm-level analysis

This study examines the impact of stock price crash risk on future CEO power. Using a large panel sample with 17,816 firm-year observations, we posit and find a significant negative impact of stock price crash risk on CEO power, suggesting that CEO power becomes smaller after stock price crashes. We also find that our results are stronger for firms with female CEOs and are largely driven by firms with shorter-tenure CEOs. In addition, we find that the significant negative impact of stock price crash risk on CEO power is diminished for firms with strong corporate governance. Our study responds to the call in Habib, Hasan, and Jiang (2018) by providing more empirical evidence on the consequences of stock price crash risk.     

CEO overconfidence and the tone of press release

This paper examines how CEO overconfidence affects the tone of press releases. Using option-based proxies for CEO overconfidence, I find that over the 2000–2018 period, the press releases issued by firms with overconfident CEOs have more positive tone and receive more positive market reactions. The relation between CEO overconfidence and the tone of press releases is stronger among firms with good operating performance and concentrated in investment-related news but is insignificant for earnings news. These findings suggest that CEO overconfidence leads to biases in press releases.     

CEO age and the riskiness of corporate policies

Prior theoretical work generates conflicting predictions with respect to how CEO age impacts risk-taking behavior. Consistent with the prediction that risk-taking behavior decreases as CEOs become older, I document a negative relation between CEO age and stock return volatility. Further analyses reveal that older CEOs reduce firm risk through less risky investment policies. Specifically, older CEOs invest less in research and development, make more diversifying acquisitions, manage firms with more diversified operations, and maintain lower operating leverage. Further, firm risk and the riskiness of corporate policies are lowest when both the CEO and the next most influential executive are older and highest when both of these managers are younger. Although older CEOs prefer less risky investment policies, I document results suggesting that CEO and firm risk preferences tend to be aligned. Lastly, I find that a trading strategy that goes long in a portfolio of stocks consisting of firms managed by younger CEOs and short in a portfolio of stocks comprised of firms led by older CEOs would generate positive risk-adjusted returns. Overall, my results imply that CEO age can have a significant impact on risk-taking behavior and firm performance.     

Earnings Warnings and CEO Welfare

Some CEOs decide voluntarily to issue a warning when they expect a negative earnings surprise. Prior research suggests that warnings contain incremental information beyond actual earnings; warning firms tend to experience permanent earnings decreases. This paper investigates whether compensation committees take warnings into account in setting CEO compensation. We find that warnings are significantly negatively (positively) associated with CEO bonus (option grants), suggesting that compensation committees adjust CEO compensation towards a more high‐powered structure after warnings. However, the sensitivity of bonus or option grants to earnings and stock returns is not affected except for bonus sensitivity to stock returns. We also find weak evidence of an increase in forced CEO turnover after warnings, accompanied by a significant increase in its sensitivity to stock returns. This benefits CEOs with higher ability but imposes more risk on other CEOs. These findings provide a partial explanation of why not every CEO facing a negative surprise decides to issue a warning. Our results are robust to various specifications. In particular, the impact of warnings on compensation appears invariant to the timing or the number of warnings. Overall, these findings suggest that the signal from warnings is used in determining CEO compensation and retention.     

CEO年龄、公司风险与风险决策行为

选取2007~2012年沪深 A 股上市公司的 CEO 为研究对象,探讨 CEO 年龄对上市公司市场风险和公司风险决策特征的影响。实证发现：CEO 年龄越大,其所在公司的市场风险越小。进一步研究表明：老年 CEO 主要通过低风险决策行为来减少公司的市场风险,即：老年 CEO 在研发上投资较少,其公司经营杠杆比率以及过度投资程度相对较低。这一结论对于我们更好地理解老年 CEO 的风险决策行为,及对不同风险特征的上市公司如何聘请不同年龄的新 CEO 具有一定的启示意义。     

Earnings management around founder CEO reappointments and successions in family firms

This paper studies reappointment of a chief executive officer (CEO) and succession events in listed family firms with an incumbent family CEO. We explore whether family firms with a founder CEO are more likely to engage in earnings management preevent than other family firms. We find evidence of preevent upward earnings management for firms that reappoint their founder CEO but no for other family firms. These findings suggest that the costs and benefits from earnings management change around founder CEO reappointments in family firms. Investors, auditors, policymakers and regulators should be aware of the temptation of founder CEOs to inflate earnings preceding their reappointment.     

The Effect of CEO Extraversion on Analyst Forecasts: Stereotypes and Similarity Bias

In an experiment with professional analysts, we study their reliance on CEO personality information when producing financial forecasts. Drawing on social cognition research, we suggest analysts apply a stereotyping heuristic, believing that extraverted CEOs are more successful. The between‐subjects results with CEO extraversion as treatment variable confirm that analysts issue more favorable forecasts (earnings per share, long‐term earnings growth, and target price) for firms led by extraverted CEOs. Increased forecast uncertainty leads to even stronger stereotyping. Additionally, personality similarity between analysts and CEOs has a large effect on financial forecasts. Analysts issue more positive forecasts for CEOs similar to themselves.     

CEO internal experience and voluntary disclosure quality: Evidence from management forecasts

Internally‐promoted CEOs should have a deep understanding of their firm's products, supply chain, operations, business climate, corporate culture, and how to navigate among employees to get the information they need. Thus, we argue that internally‐promoted CEOs are likely to produce higher quality disclosure than outsider CEOs. Using a sample of US firms from the S&P1500 index from 2001 to 2011, we hand‐collect whether a CEO is hired from inside the firm and, if so, the number of years they worked at the firm before becoming CEO. We then examine whether managers with more internal experience issue higher quality disclosures and offer three main findings. First, CEOs with more internal experience are more likely to issue voluntary earnings forecasts than those managers with less internal experience as well as those managers hired from outside the firm. Second, CEOs with more internal experience issue more accurate earnings forecasts than those managers with less internal experience as well as those managers hired from outside the firm. Finally, investors react more strongly to forecasts issued by insider CEOs than to those issued by outsider CEOs. In additional analysis, we find no evidence that these results extend to mandatory reporting quality (i.e., accruals quality, restatements, or internal control weaknesses), perhaps because mandatory disclosure is subjected to heavy oversight by the board of directors, auditors, and regulators. Overall, our findings suggest that when managers have work experience with the firm prior to becoming the CEO, the firm's voluntary disclosure is of higher quality.     

Regulator Scrutiny and Bank CEO Incentives

This study analyzes the effects of monitoring intensity on compensation and turnover for CEOs of publicly-traded banks. Using a sample of banks from 1992 to 2004, I find that monitoring intensity plays a significant role in compensation levels, pay-for-performance sensitivity, and CEO turnover. The results show that CEOs from highly-rated institutions receive smaller pay than CEOs from competing institutions, and that monitoring intensity, as proxied by CEO age, influences the relationship between market performance and executive incentives. These findings suggest that regulatory ratings and CEO age impact optimal bank governance structure by varying incentive sensitivity to market performance.

CEO Compensation and Firm Performance: an Empirical Investigation of UK Panel Data

This paper examines the link between CEO pay and performance employing a unique, hand‐collected panel data set of 390 UK non‐financial firms from the FTSE All Share Index for the period 1999–2005. We include both cash (salary and bonus) and equity‐based (stock options and long‐term incentive plans) components of CEO compensation, and CEO wealth based on share holdings, stock option and stock awards holdings in our analysis. In addition, we control for a comprehensive set of corporate governance variables. The empirical results show that in comparison to the previous findings for US CEOs, pay‐performance elasticity for UK CEOs seems to be lower; pay‐performance elasticity for UK CEOs is 0.075 (0.095) for cash compensation (total direct compensation), indicating that a ten percentage increase in shareholder return corresponds to an increase of 0.75% (0.95%) in cash (total direct) compensation. We also find that both the median share holdings and stock‐based pay‐performance sensitivity are lower for UK CEOs when we compare our findings with the previous findings for US CEOs. Thus, our results suggest that corporate governance reports in the UK, such as the Greenbury Report (1995) that proposed CEO compensation be more closely linked to performance, have not been totally effective. Our findings also indicate that institutional ownership has a positive and significant influence on CEO pay‐performance sensitivity of option grants. Finally, we find that longer CEO tenure is associated with lower pay‐performance sensitivity of option grants suggesting the entrenchment effect of CEO tenure.     

CEO薪酬与企业业绩互动效应的实证检验

本文利用逐步回归和路径分析方法 ,检验了我国上市公司CEO薪酬的激励制约机制和激励制约效果。结果发现 :(1)决定CEO薪酬增长的因素主要是营业利润率变动 ,决定CEO薪酬下降的因素则主要是总资产净利率变动 ,这表明在我国上市公司的CEO薪酬层面已体现了一定的激励制约机制 ;(2 )增加CEO薪酬对提高企业的规模和股东财富均有一定的促进作用 ,但降低CEO薪酬却不仅不能提高企业规模和股东财富 ,反而会对其产生一定的负面影响 ,这不仅说明CEO薪酬也具有“工资刚性”特征 ,而且说明我国上市公司的CEO薪酬也仅有单方面的激励效果 ,而没有预期的制约效果 ;(3)无论是增加或降低CEO薪酬 ,CEO均不存在盈余管理或利润操纵的机会主义行为 ,这表明CEO进行盈余管理或利润操纵的动机不应该是为了增加其公开性薪酬 ,而应该是居于除公开性薪酬以外的其他目的。     

CEO gender and managerial entrenchment

This paper investigates the effect of gender on managerial authority and control over firms. The study examines S&P 1500 firms for the period of 1999–2014. Our findings suggest that accounting performance, firm value, CEO age, firm age, and board size reduce the likelihood of appointing female managers. On the other hand, the appointment of female CEOs is directly associated with the percentage of female directors, board independence, and beta. The study confirms the notion that female CEO appointments are generally associated with firms facing adverse conditions, and shows that female CEOs are more entrenched as compared to male CEOs. We find that the presence of female CEO decreases the turnover-performance sensitivity, increases the E-index, and inflates CEO compensation. Our research suggests that the level of female CEOs’ entrenchment provides them with greater job security, higher level of control, and inflated pay that compensate the risk of accepting the appointment in a high risk and poor performing firm.     

Media coverage,board structure and CEO compensation: Evidence from Taiwan

This paper investigates the relationship between CEO cash compensation and media coverage of firms, analyst forecasts and board structure using data from the Taiwan Stock Exchange. We find that, other things being equal, CEO cash compensation is much higher for firms with greater media coverage, firms with more positive news, firms with more analyst forecasts, and firms with larger institutional holdings. There is little evidence that board size and board independence affect CEO cash compensation, and CEO duality is negatively associated with CEO cash compensation     

The efficiency of compensation contracting in China: Do better CEOs get better paid?

Over recent years, China adopted a number of ‘western-style’ reforms of corporate governance and executive compensation. We investigate whether boards of Chinese firms evaluate CEO ability and remunerate their CEOs accordingly, an essential tenet of efficient compensation contracting. Using Data Envelopment Analysis to measure CEO ability, we do not find any evidence that CEO ability matters in compensation contracting decisions—it does not lead to either higher pay, stronger pay-for-performance sensitivity, or a higher likelihood of equity grants. This is surprising, since we find evidence that higher ability CEOs achieve superior firm performance. In contrast, we find that powerful CEOs do not overperform, while they enjoy large abnormal pay. Overall, our results suggest that Chinese firms fail to embrace new corporate governance reforms and are unable to fully utilize the reforms’ benefits.

     

Can CEO dismissals be proactive?

We find significant variation in the prior stock returns of firms that dismiss their CEOs between 1996 and 2008. 49% of firms that dismiss their CEOs do so in the absence of negative industry-adjusted stock returns prior to dismissal (37% dismiss in the absence of negative raw returns). We find evidence for two reasons why boards may dismiss CEOs early, i.e., in the absence of significant poor prior stock performance. First, we find that early dismissals are more likely to be associated with corporate scandals, suggesting that CEOs that are found to engage in unethical or illegal activities are dismissed although their actions may not have a significant adverse impact on firm value. Second, we find support for the argument that early dismissals are proactive actions by boards to dismiss low ability CEOs. We find that firms with more equity-based compensation for directors and higher independent director ownership are more likely to dismiss their CEOs early. Boards with strong incentives are more likely to be proactive and act on their private information about the CEO than boards with poor incentives. Early dismissal firms experience a short-lived decline in operating performance around the date of CEO dismissal, and their operating performance recovers immediately after the CEO is replaced. On the other hand, the operating performance of late dismissal firms declines significantly prior to dismissal and improves substantially after dismissal. We also find that CEOs that are dismissed early are not more likely to find new CEO positions than CEOs that are dismissed late, supporting the idea that early dismissal CEOs may not have different ability than late dismissal CEOs.     

Does market power discipline CEO power? An agency perspective

We examine how product market competition (PMC) shapes chief executive officer's (CEO) power. Using various measures to capture both PMC and CEO power, our analyses, which include a quasi‐natural experiment, find evidence that CEOs have less power when the product market is more competitive. Furthermore, the impact of PMC on CEO power is more pronounced for firms with entrenched management, lower CEO ownership, lower analyst coverage, and for firms experiencing good ‘luck’ (windfall performance). Our results suggest that market power can act as a substitute for corporate governance in disciplining CEO power, particularly when prone to agency problems.     

The dark side of CEO ability: CEO general managerial skills and cost of equity capital

CEOs with substantial general managerial ability (generalist CEOs) possess a substantial share of organization (human) capital and have different risk-taking incentives than do their counterpart specialist CEOs. Using an index increasing in CEO general managerial skills as a proxy for general managerial ability, we find that investors require higher returns from firms featuring CEOs who have profuse general managerial ability. Furthermore, expected returns are significantly increasing with CEO general managerial ability in firms with high organization capital, that belong to M&A-intensive industries and that have complex operations, high agency problems and high anti-takeover provisions. These findings are consistent with arguments that organization (human) capital has significant expected return implications and that CEOs with higher general managerial skills may lead to higher agency problems, feature different risk-taking incentives and be more costly to retain in times of need.